Dark Hollow eBook

XXVIII

THE FIRST EFFORT

LEAVES FROM ALANSON BLACK’S NOTE-BOOK, FOUND BY REUTHER SOME
MONTHS LATER, IN A VERY QUEER PLACE, VIZ.: HER MOTHER’S JEWEL-BOX

At the New Willard. Awaiting two articles—­Oliver’s
picture and a few lines in the judge’s writing
requesting his son’s immediate return.
Meanwhile, I have made no secret of my reason for being
here. All my inquiries at the desk have shown
it to be particularly connected with a certain bill
now before Congress, in which Shelby is vitally interested.

Perhaps I can further the interests of this bill in
off minutes. I am willing to.

The picture is here, as well as the name of the hotel
where the two women are staying. I have spent
five minutes studying the face I must be able to recognise
at first glance in any crowd. It’s not
a bad face; I can see his mother’s looks in him.
But it is not the face I used to know. Trouble
develops a man.

There’s a fellow here who rouses my suspicions.
No one knows him;- -I don’t myself. But
he’s strangely interested in me. If he’s
from Shelby—­in other words, if he’s
from the detective bureau there, I’ve led him
a chase to-day which must have greatly bewildered
him. I’m not slow, and I’m not above
mixing things. From the Cairo where our present
congressman lives, I went to the Treasury, then to
the White House, and then to the Smithsonian—­with
a few newspaper offices thrown in, and some hotels
where I took pains that my interviews should not be
too brief. When quite satisfied that by these
various and somewhat confusing peregrinations I had
thrown off any possible shadower, I fetched up at the
Library where I lunched. Then, as I thought the
time had come for me to enjoy myself, I took a walk
about the great building, ending up with the reading-room.
Here I asked for a book on a certain abstruse subject.
Of course, it was not in my line, but I looked wise
and spoke the name glibly. When I sat down to
consult it, the man who brought it threw me a short
glance which I chose to think peculiar. “You
don’t have many readers for this volume?”
I ventured. He smiled and answered, “Just
sent it back to the shelves. It’s had a
steady reader for ten days. Before that, nobody.”
“Is this your steady reader?” I asked,
showing him the photograph I drew from my pocket.
He stared, but said nothing. He did not have
to. In a state of strange satisfaction I opened
the book. It was Greek, if not worse, to me,
but I meant to read a few paragraphs for the sake
of appearances, and was turning over the pages in
search of a promising chapter, when—­Talk
of remarkable happenings!—­there in the
middle of the book was a card,—­his card!—­left
as a marker, no doubt, and on this card, an address
hastily scribbled in lead pencil. It only remained
for me to find that the hotel designated in this address
was a Washington one, for me to recognise in this
simple but strangely opportune occurrence, a coincidence—­or,
as you would say,—­an act of Providence
as startling as those we read of in books.